No Holds Barred (32 page)

Danvers shrugged. ‘Things weren't going to plan anyway. Dek's brief was to find evidence of the funding behind the Butcher Boys. The organization seems to have money and to spare. We believe it's huge. Countrywide. But it's based round here, and although we'd had a tip off that the Boyds were heavily implicated, we don't believe they have the kind of money we're talking about. However, they run an extremely tight ship, and Dek wasn't making much headway.'

‘Taylor is a cunning bastard,' Dek put in sourly. ‘He let me see so much but never enough. There were dozens of little things we could have had him for, but none of them would have carried much of a penalty. We wanted the big hit.'

‘You helped him bring a dog into the country, didn't you?' Daniel said.

‘Two dogs, actually. Papers all correct. Labrador crossed with a boxer, and who could prove otherwise? No one even raised an eyebrow, and if they had, Taylor would've pleaded shock and innocence. He's a consummate liar.'

The farmhouse telephone rang and Jenny went to answer it.

‘Oh, hello, Sue,' they heard her say, and Danvers began to talk quietly, revealing details of other suspicions the authorities held about the Boyd family's activities.

A minute or two later, his discourse was interrupted by Jenny saying sharply, ‘Well, where are they, then?'

The conversation round the table hushed, alerted by the tone of her voice.

‘She does, does she? Send her up to me, then, and tell her to make it quick,' Jenny continued. ‘Yes, I know. It's not your fault. I'm not blaming you. OK, thanks.'

She put the phone down and turned back to the others with a crease between her brows.

‘What's up?' McCreesh asked.

‘That was Sue, down at the stables. I asked if the kids were behaving themselves and she said only Lucy turned up. She doesn't know where the boys are, and Lucy either doesn't know or won't say. I've told her to send Lucy to me.'

‘I expect they've just gone off on some boys' adventure,' McCreesh suggested lightly.

‘Probably,' Daniel agreed. He would have been surprised if that was the case, given how much Drew had been enjoying being around the horses, but he didn't want to add to Jenny's anxiety at this stage.

There wasn't much more to be said without Lucy's input, so they sat in silence until Jenny, who was standing by the open front door, said, ‘Here she comes. She's riding Piper.'

Moments later, her twelve-year-old-daughter was in the room, standing in front of Jenny in denim jodhpurs and a pink T-shirt, with her strawberry blonde curls pulled back into a ponytail and a somewhat stubborn set to her mouth.

‘If you know where they've gone, you tell me, young lady,' her mother said in a voice that brooked no argument.

Lucy looked mulish and said nothing.

‘Lucy, it's important. If you don't know where they are, at least tell me which way they went.'

‘I promised not to tell,' she said, turning pink under the scrutiny of so many interested persons.

‘Well, I can promise you that if you don't tell, you'll be grounded for the rest of the holidays!' her mother warned.

Lucy appeared to consider this and come to the conclusion that loyalty had a price after all.

‘They were going to see if they could get an autograph off that footballer they're so mad about,' she muttered after a moment. ‘I told them you wouldn't like it, but they wouldn't listen.'

‘They already knew I wouldn't like it,' Jenny said grimly. ‘Or they'd have asked first.'

‘What footballer?' McCreesh asked.

‘Liam Sellyoak. He owns the house next door,' Jenny told him. ‘Great Ditton Manor.'

‘Well, surely the worst he'll do is send them away with a flea in their ear,' he said.

‘I suppose so, but I don't like the man.'

‘Did Taylor ever speak of him?' Daniel asked Dek, who frowned.

‘I don't think so. Not more than in passing, anyway.'

‘And yet he knew him well enough to have his number on a hotkey on his mobile phone,' Daniel mused.

‘How do you know that?'

Daniel picked the recently acquired phone up off the table and explained how he'd come by it. ‘I tried to get Fletcher to talk a couple of weeks ago but he more or less slammed the door in my face, so I posted him my number in the hope he'd change his mind. Looks like he has.'

Danvers looked interested. ‘And are you sure the phone is Taylor Boyd's?'

‘Pretty much. It's got all the members of his family on there, including one that says “Dad”. Even if the phone's not registered, it'll be easy enough to check if that's Norman Boyd's number.'

‘Excellent!' Dek said.

‘What I'm interested in right now is the way Liam Sellyoak's name keeps cropping up through all this,' Daniel said. ‘You're looking for someone with money who may be bankrolling the Butcher Boys, and here we have a millionaire footballer who lives just round the corner and whose number is on Taylor's old mobile. That seems quite a coincidence, and I don't know about you, but I don't like coincidences.'

‘You think they might have taken the dogs there?' William asked. He had picked up the phone and was pressing buttons.

Daniel looked at him. ‘I hadn't got that far, but it's possible, isn't it?'

‘Worth checking out,' Danvers agreed, taking his own phone from his pocket. ‘I'll give the DS a ring and run it by him.'

‘Talking of checking out, check this out,' William exclaimed on a note of triumph, and passed the phone to Daniel.

William had accessed the phone's photo gallery, and on the miniature screen was a shot clearly taken at a dog fight. What was equally clear was that the photo had been taken not to record the action but to highlight one particular member of the watching crowd. Standing close to the ring, and clearly urging the participants on, was Liam Sellyoak in clear, sharp detail.

‘Got him!' Daniel breathed, passing the phone to Dek. ‘And I'm guessing this explains why Sellyoak is bankrolling the Boyds, if he is. Think what a picture like this would do to his career if it found its way into the papers. He has near-hero status with half the young boys of Britain. It would ruin him. I'd say the Boyds have him eating out of their hands.'

‘The Boyds were released just over half an hour ago,' Danvers reported. ‘So it's a fair bet, if the dogs are being hidden at Sellyoak's place, they won't waste too much time getting over there.'

‘And Harry and Drew are on their way to see him.' Jenny looked stricken. ‘Oh my God, Daniel – we've got to stop them!'

TWENTY

‘
W
hich way did they go?' Daniel asked, pushing his chair back and getting to his feet. ‘By road? Or is there a shorter way?'

‘There's a shortcut,' Jenny told him. ‘Through the woods behind us. They could be there in twenty minutes if they went on their bikes. Did they?' She fired the question at Lucy who still stood nearby, eyes round as she listened. Now she nodded, looking scared.

‘I'll go after them,' Daniel said. ‘Can you show me the path?'

‘Yes, it's pretty easy to follow,' Jenny said, heading for the door.

‘I'll get things moving,' Danvers said, keying numbers into his mobile.

Outside, Jenny had paused and Daniel almost ran into her.

‘What's wrong?'

‘You could take Piper,' she said, and Daniel saw the quarter horse patiently standing tied to the garden gate where Lucy had left him. He was wearing a bridle but no saddle, and Daniel knew from what Drew had told him that Sue was very keen on improving grip and balance by teaching the kids to ride bareback.

Hoping that his own grip and balance were up to the challenge, Daniel untied Piper and vaulted on to his glossy chestnut back. Gathering up the reins in one hand and a hunk of mane in the other, he urged the horse to follow Jenny who was already moving towards the side of the house.

Passing the office, she showed him where a rather overgrown path ran alongside the field behind the house, heading for the dark line of the copse, some fifty yards away.

‘Just stay on the path. It's signposted as a bridleway. It comes out in Well Bottom Field and crosses the river. Watch Piper with the bridge. When you go up the track on the other side, you'll see the house on your right. Please find them, Daniel!'

‘I will.'

Guiding Piper through the narrow opening to the bridleway, he applied his heels firmly and was rewarded by a surge of power that almost caught him napping. Glad of his handful of mane, he regained his balance and leaned forward as the horse thundered along the path, the straggling hedges on either side whipping Daniel's lower legs as they passed.

In the copse, which had once been a working hazel coppice, he had to lean even lower to avoid being scooped off the animal's back by low branches. He could feel Piper's muscles rippling under him as he gripped the smooth satiny coat with his knees, and was grateful that the path was, for the most part, straight.

Bursting out of the cool dimness of the wood a minute or two later, Daniel and Piper were suddenly faced with a narrow picket gate leading into a meadow. Moving fast and with only a stride or two's warning, Daniel took the only option available and urged the horse on, twisting both hands into his thick mane and sending a prayer skywards.

Piper took the gate in his stride, bunching his quarters and leaping neatly over to land with hardly a jolt on the soft turf beyond. Daniel landed a little less gracefully, with his face buried in the animal's mane. Finding himself rudderless, Piper veered left for a stride or two but Daniel soon regained his balance and straightened him up, heading downhill towards a gap in the far hedge.

This time, he pulled the horse up in time to avoid the necessity of jumping the five-bar gate, a feat he didn't feel confident of attempting. Luckily, the gate was easily opened, and they were soon cantering down a grassy track towards the bottom of the valley.

Rounding a bend, the river came into sight, crossed by the bridge that Jenny had warned him about. It was narrow; not much more than a footbridge, with a handrail on one side. Daniel slowed the horse to a walk and steered him towards it, but as soon as his hooves touched the wooden planking, Piper baulked, swinging round and away from the structure.

Daniel turned him back again, with the same result. He could feel the horse's coat growing warm with sweat as he became agitated. Slipping off his back, on to legs that had become strangely jelly-like, Daniel attempted to lead the horse forward, but Piper was having none of it. He dug in his toes and threw his head high, looking at Daniel through white-rimmed eyes. He clearly had issues.

‘OK, fella. I guess we'll just have to go round it, then,' Daniel said soothingly, looking to the side of the bridge where vegetation grew tall on the river bank, masking the transition from solid ground to water. To his eyes, the prospect looked far more daunting than twelve feet or so of wooden planks, but then he wasn't a horse.

Vaulting on to Piper's back once more, he rode him towards the river's edge, quite prepared for him to dig his toes in again but the horse breasted the vegetation without hesitating, sliding a little as the ground gave way beneath his hooves and plunging knee-deep into the water where Taz was already cooling off.

Feeling that he would never completely understand horses, Daniel patted Piper's neck and urged him forward across the stony riverbed. Piper stumbled as his feet met the rising ground unseen beneath the reeds, then lurched upwards, almost losing Daniel out the back door.

They rejoined the path, and he sent Piper on into a gallop, seeing the trees flitting by on the edge of his vision. After a few hundred yards, the path left the wood and split into two, the left fork, which was signposted as the bridleway, hugging the lee of the trees, and the right one leading to a gate. From there, across the open parkland beyond, Daniel could see the impressive Georgian facade of Great Ditton Manor. His hope that he would see the two boys pedalling across the last stretch of grass was dashed. They were nowhere to be seen.

The main gate was padlocked, but beside it a smaller one swung in the breeze. Making a mental note to reprimand the boys for leaving it unlatched, Daniel pushed it wide and rode through, doing the same thing himself as he tightened his legs on Piper's sides and sent him into a gallop once more. Out to one side, Taz stretched into a run.

This time they went like the wind, thundering across the open grassland with the wind whipping through the horse's mane and rippling Daniel's shirt. There was no chance of approaching unseen, so speed was the best option, and within a very short time they had reached the low hedge that bordered the gravel drive, jumped it and pulled up in a spray of shingle.

Daniel caught sight of movement through an archway to the side of the house and turned the horse that way. It led through to a large quadrangle formed by the wall behind him, covered stables and a coachhouse to the right and ahead, and the house on the left. It appeared there were no horses in residence as the yard was bare of the usual signs of occupancy, but he could hear dogs barking somewhere.

A familiar blue van was parked alongside several other vehicles, including Liam Sellyoak's black Porsche, and the sound of Piper's hooves crunching on the gravel brought the footballer hurrying from an open doorway, followed closely by Taylor Boyd.

Boyd initially glanced past Daniel, but then, apparently satisfied that he had come alone, said with a sneer, ‘Well, if it isn't the lone fuckin' ranger!'

Daniel ignored the taunt, his eyes searching, without success, for any sign of the boys. What he did see, in the open back of the van, was a number of wire-mesh crates, such as are commonly used for transporting dogs. One of the cages was already occupied. It seemed their guess had been right.